I had a strange dream last night. I know I'm not remembering all of it, but what stuck with me was an image of people walking around talking to themselves. I shrugged it off as just another odd dream, until I got to work this morning and saw people walking around talking to themselves - or rather into their cellphones.

Sometimes I wonder how much people actually understand about the technology that they use on a daily basis. I think for the most part this knowledge is next to nothing. It's kind of scary to imagine how things will be in the future, as technology gets more advanced and the majority of people understand less and less of how it works. A dangerous and growing disconnect.

It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch of the imagination to picture a time when technology is almost regarded as a form of magic, something incomprehensible and possibly regarded with fear. Imagine the "Dark Ages" replayed, but this time with instant communication to spread paranoia, fear, and ignorance like a plague.

I would so be burned at the stake… I hope it has blinky lights.

I try to avoid wasting my time dwelling on the past, but I find it much harder not to focus my efforts on the future. I realize that it's good to have goals and to look forward to things, but I spend a good chunk of my time (mostly while I'm at work) just wishing that the rest of the week would rush past me and leave me at the doorstep of the weekend.

For awhile I had become very good at living 'in the moment'.. but looking back, I think it was more of a coping mechanism than a beneficial state of mind. It felt good, I was definitely happier, more cheerful, more smiley - but I think I was just a couple steps up above denial.

I'm sure that there are books dedicated to this subject, and although I can't think of any off-hand, I know that I've come across some. Pretty certain of it at least. The problem with Self-help and Inspirational type books is that the majority of them are just filler. Shiny covers that fill up shelves in a bookstore, and provide a decent income to another person that figured out how to attractively regurgitate the same nothingness as most of their fellow bookshelf-mates.

I wonder how big of a market self-help would be if any of the books and products actually helped people nearly as much as was promised. I've known people with shelves of these books. An entire bookshelf of advice that might have very well been pulled out of fortune cookies. It's too bad that these books obscure the truly helpful and rare gems that exist out there.

Monday is a bad day to start longing for Friday night.

PILLO INSPECKSHUN

Can I Has Nother Red Bull

LAZORS CHARGED
FIRE AT WILL

The rare Patagonian Kitten Vine.

(11:40:26 AM) spudart: what if you met someone whose name is Google?
(11:40:31 AM) spudart: "Hi, I'm Google."
(11:40:48 AM) wifisparx: i would marry her
(11:40:53 AM) wifisparx: and it would be a her
(11:41:16 AM) wifisparx: and i'd never have to worry about remembering where the remote control is
(11:41:27 AM) wifisparx: i could just yell out "Hey Google.. where's the remote?"
(11:41:47 AM) wifisparx: it would probably be the 3rd result though
(11:42:06 AM) wifisparx: i'd end up sidetracked and somehow be waiting for a new remote to come via UPS
(11:48:34 AM) spudart: lol

This is about as ridiculous an idea as one can have, but it came to me in a dream last night.. one that I actually am able to remember.

I have this idea in my head that with proper funding and motivation, I could do great things. Or at least little things that will make a small enough difference to make the world a better place. And that's the goal that I've set for myself for this lifetime - I don't care about accumulating some insane amount of money and wealth, or building some sort of legacy and having my name mentioned in some semi-important context - I just want to go out knowing that I've done something to improve things.

So, the dream: I need a few people that have enough money to make a small investment in me. In my ideas.  I'm not sure of the exact numbers yet, but probably something like a $4k investment with a payback of 1% of any profits (after living expenses) or $5k after 5 years, whichever is more. It'd be more like a loan than an investment, with at least a 25% return after 5 years. It's not just the money though, the idea is also that someone investing that sort of cash into anything would be interested in what sort of progress is being made - which seems like it would be a pretty good motivator.

I've been noticing a slight increase in readers lately, mostly due to google suddenly liking me a lot more. Some of my recent posts have been coming up as results for some interesting search terms, which the post they lead to has slightly more than nothing to actually do with. In order to make this blog a bit more useful, I think I'm going to start taking the most common searches and building pages that are actually useful for someone searching for those topics. I'm thinking of doing that on a weekly basis, so if you really want to throw me off, try to find the most obscure/bizarre searches that lead to my posts.

Yesterday I posted about my luck.. and since luck is such a subjective topic, I may have technically ended up posting about nothing. Maybe leprechauns.. who knows.

How about something much more tangible (in an intangible way), and less subject to possible wishful-thinking on my part: Deja vu. Lately my dreams have been toying with me, I'll wake up knowing that there's something important, something out of the ordinary that I *should* remember, but the harder I try the more elusive it seems to become. I've been noticing this same behavior from my brain while trying to remember things about my childhood, important things, things that I should be able to spit out without thinking are now hidden from me.

So what does this have to do with Deja vu? I'm starting to think that these dreams are almost premonitionary (not a word) in a way, because when I do seem to remember parts of them, it's an absolute Deja vu experience. Lately I've been having too many events happen, too many conversations where I know I've already experienced them, and in some cases can anticipate the exact next words spoken, and know how I responded before it's even my turn to respond.

Perhaps I'm just becoming schizophrenic.

Whatever it is, I welcome it into my life as well.

Luck. It's a funny thing. A label that we give to a string of events depending on how they align with our current wants and needs.. a label that's been getting a lot of use lately in my life.

I've always been of the attitude that things will just "fall into place" and I use that phrase quite often when talking about the future and other things that I'm less than certain about. It hasn't failed me yet, in fact it's worked quite nicely. I'm feeling an urge to be a bit more proactive about things though.. not yet.. but the time for that is definitely approaching.

Right now, people, events, and free drinks are finding me as I need them. Everything is playing out at a comfortable pace, but there's definitely a slight nudge towards something more. I'm being pushed by my "luck", by fortune, to become more than what I've become comfortable with - and I welcome it. I welcome the people that are coming into my life and helping me find the path that I've been walking next to, unknowingly, for so long.

I also welcome the mistake of the Sprint rebate processors. My phone had a $100 mail-in rebate, which I made sure I sent in - not losing out on $100 off of anything. I got an email yesterday saying that my $300 rebate was approved and would be mailed soon. This might be the time for everyone to jump on my coat-tails and try to ride my luck with me.